The Path
(Model for Relationships and Partnerships)

Oh, how wonderful that would be – it would be the end of all longing.

But the spirits are already parting ways at the words.
What is love? What is freedom?
Where does one begin, where does the other end?

We can look at love and freedom from different angles: selfishly, strictly morally, or from a libertarian perspective. Let’s look at love from a state of lack or abundance – or as if we were looking out of a window into the security of our home or out of it into the vastness of the world.

However, one thing is certain: the perspective from which we look at these seemingly simple terms is shaped by our biography and culture. And since everyone grew up differently and developed differently, a common understanding will always only be an approximation.

Recognizing how different our worlds are and what the respective universe of each individual is like is the journey of every relationship

Every interpersonal encounter reflects our own history – and this is exactly where conflicts often arise.
What is self-evident and right for one person can seem strange or threatening to another.

In order not to let such differences escalate, many of us look for an ultimate truth: in the cultural environment, with friends, in social norms or in guidebooks.
Sometimes couples even hope in therapy for a higher authority that knows the “right” way and brings the other to “insight”. But that’s not how it works – because there is no truth that is valid for everyone.

Although we long for security and structure, love, as a child of freedom, will wither in a dictatorship of rules. On the other hand, it doesn’t work without rules – otherwise everyone would just do what they want.

Therefore, respect, mindfulness and willingness to compromise are the cornerstones of every relationship.

Respect means respecting the views of others on the world, even if I don’t share them or even vehemently reject them. What we call values has been shaped by conditioning and life stories. What is appropriate for one person may be completely inappropriate for another.
We should never forget that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Mindfulness means taking into account the possible interpretation of my actions by the other person: what is self-evident to me can mean assault or even cruelty to another. Mindfulness does not mean that I withdraw and betray myself, but that I always “see” the other person in the interaction.

Compromises do not mean rigid rules, but temporary agreements that enable several people to live together. They should be honest, spoken out and not arise from fear or pity

There is no generic model or universal rules for relationships, because the world is diverse and the perception of each individual is different. Also, couple or relationship counselors are not knowers or judges.

However, what does exist is a model that guides us through the many possible pitfalls, misunderstandings and magical moments on the path to self-discovery and personal maturity.

It is a rough guide to the labyrinth of relationships. It is not a map, but rather a location determination with references to the new perspectives and challenges that await us.

Man seeks a mirror or, like most, you simply don’t want to be alone.

You get to know a person with whom you want to start the journey and it seems that this person has everything your heart longs for.

That magically attracts you.

You decide to open up further and embark on the first big journey. Or you hesitate: Is he, is she really the one? Do you want to set out together or is something better waiting around the corner?

And what about the first compromises?
Do you both have similar ideas about a relationship – loyalty, children, career?

You are on the road and everyone has their projects and responsibilities (children, career, personal development, etc.). At first it goes really well – you seem to be the perfect team, but very slowly man and woman are lost. You are just a team and you start to distance yourself from each other.

Maybe you realize that you can talk to each other less and less and still not be without the other – the erotic attraction and the magic of the moment have disappeared.

You have gotten into a strange dependency, maybe one of you is already having an affair and is thinking about breaking out.
But where to?

You start to take yourself more seriously than the partnership again and manage to leave the relationship bubble. Maybe you travel alone for a few days or you go different ways.

This can be the beginning of the second big journey.
However, you can also anxiously remain in the relationship and you arrange yourself with the given circumstances and constraints and refuse your love and truth.

If you have embarked on the second big journey, it is quite possible that you were able to free yourselves from your usual relationship swamp and look each other in the eye respectfully and benevolently like adventurers who have mastered a dangerous challenge.

On this path you will shed the familiar skin of your conditioning and question many supposed certainties.

Don’t expect quick solutions during this development step, as this can be a long and sometimes painful process.

Once we have spotted an object of desire, two programs start immediately.
The first is the biological or genetic program. At this very rudimentary stage, every living being strives for reproduction. The fact that we still don’t pair up with everyone is largely biologically determined.
Through imperceptible odors, so-called pheromones, through taste and many other signals that are unconsciously exchanged, nature ensures that only the best matching gene combinations attract each other.

The second level of partner choice, however, has nothing to do with such disillusioning things as smell and genetics. It is the level that we perceive as romantic.
But as beautiful as romance is, it often turns out to be a fallacy – we mostly only repeat old patterns, in a never-ending loop.

What we like to interpret as magical moments is often nothing more than a binding pattern driven out of our biography – a repetition.
Some part of our highly complex personality is just looking for a mirror, and as soon as we think we have found it, we feel butterflies in our stomach.

The fact is that when we fall in love, we first fall in love with ourselves: with our current charisma and the lively, dreamy stroll with which we capture the glances of passers-by and that makes us feel – the world belongs to us.

All this feels like magic and in fact we are the sole creators of our universe in those moments. However, not because Cupid’s arrow has hit us or we have met a soul mate and are now riding on the wave of a never-ending feeling of happiness, but simply because we are on drugs.

This is a powerful mixture of substances that we produce ourselves: oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine and others. Our blood is flooded with them. At the same time, our serotonin level drops, similar to people who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It’s so beautiful.

At the latest, when the pairing pressure has fallen off us, the magical sounds of the bush drum in the stomach disappear and give way to an ever stronger focus on the counterpart.
No longer do we create the world from our magical love consciousness, no longer does it obey us, but the partner.

As so often with the transition from the animistic-magical to the mythical, we now need an instance outside ourselves – a person to whom we can look up. Someone who henceforth seems largely responsible for the course of the world and our happiness.

While we initially created being in love ourselves, we become increasingly dependent in this phase. No longer are we the magicians and creators of our universe, but this role shifts step by step to the other.
Suddenly, it is no longer our inner state that determines how the stars of fate shine – but the partner. In this way, we gradually get into the beginnings of a dependency network.

At the beginning this is not unpleasant, because the partner is still trying to read all wishes from our eyes. But soon the dependency begins to grow.

This dependency will not necessarily disturb us as long as we are busy with joint projects such as children, house and career. We function as a team. Sexuality and intimacy may decrease continuously, but this is also convenient for many – it was often an affair fraught with stress and pressure to perform.

The conflict lines now run between:

• Wanting to own and the fear of being alone again.
• Longing for security but also longing for freedom.
• Insisting on one’s own positions and wanting to be right – there must be a right and wrong.
• Abundance and lack – both emotionally and materially.
• Demands on the partner and refusals of the partner to fulfill these demands.

All these conflicts are most likely to ignite at first on trifles, but over time they take on a relationship-defining dimension. It can feel like a matter of life and death.

Both seem lost: both love and freedom. Nevertheless, both cannot break away from each other. What remains is often a silent dissatisfaction – accompanied by the hope that perhaps a new encounter, an affair, could bring life and
fulfillment again.

We are at a fork in the road.

One path leads into a hostile-dependent relationship – because more and more often one refuses to fulfill the needs and wishes of the other.
The other path leads into a fused-cuddly partnership, in which we are more friends than man and woman.
Many couples cannot clearly decide for one or the other path in this situation, but commute between quarrel, reconciliation and despair. They are frightened of themselves and desperately looking for harmony.

But the next time is sure to come, because there will be a weekend or vacation. Conflicts cannot be swept under the rug. Mostly it will become more violent and hurtful each time.

We feel neither loved nor capable of love, the partner no longer sees us, and almost everything grows over our heads.

What many overlook: We have often not lost the partner or the partnership – but ourselves.

In an attempt to do justice to the relationship, we have given up parts of ourselves piece by piece – sides that make us who we are, alive and unique. We have adapted: to the partner, to the family, to ideas of the future and a harmonious coexistence.

Many would say they did it willingly. And that compromises are necessary to be happy together.
That may be true in some cases.

But one question remains:
Does this image of harmony and happiness – this idea of an ideal partnership or family – really come from ourselves?

Or have we taken it over?

Our ideas and ideas come from our past.

Maybe we want our children to be better off than us. Maybe we want to prevent a divorce at all costs because we are divorce children ourselves. Maybe we have never known anything else.

The first challenge we face is figuring out where we get our ideas and notions about relationships, and then exploring who painted our maps and calibrated and labeled our compasses.

The second task is to check whether our maps and instruments are suitable for leading us out of the jungle or whether they are not actually leading us further and further astray. This is a challenging process because it means finding out what our own truth is – regardless of parents, in-laws, magazines and glossy magazines.

These are questions that we can often only approach throughout our lives without getting comprehensive answers: Who am I? What makes me lovable? What is the meaning of it all?

But it’s not really about answers, it’s about developing from a dependent partnership to ourselves.
It’s about rediscovering the lost feelings and the lost love within ourselves.

Because we can only give away what is within us.

It is easier to abandon yourself than to find yourself. This “self-discovery” is an individual development process – a path that one walks alone, like birth and death.

Those who embark on this journey are not primarily separating from their partner, but from their own ideas, judgments, illusions and longings.

This inner separation is often more challenging than saying goodbye to a person. It is not a break-up or a divorce – rather, no stone is left unturned.

The phoenix is a mythical bird that dies and burns at the end of its life cycle in order to rise anew from its ashes. It is called the reborn.

What makes a separation and overcoming symbiosis so difficult is not knowing what comes next.
Those who embark on this path die alone in a way. They do not know whether they will rise from the ashes and be reborn. They do not know if there is an afterlife.

Once they have gone through the metamorphosis – like a caterpillar spinning itself into its cocoon – they become butterflies. Then they are free, and the caterpillar life has lost all its appeal.

This path requires enduring not knowing – not only during the separation, but for a lifetime.
All familiar certainties are questioned – until only what truly sustains and nourishes the soul remains.

Separating means letting go – not of affection or goodwill, but of the idea of an everlasting oneness.
And even if the partnership has long become uncomfortable, many hold on: to the illusion of security, to being right, to old promises and mutual demands – even if the relationship has long become toxic.

It hurts to admit that the expectations and romantic ideas from the beginning of the relationship have not become reality – and perhaps never will.

On the path to adulthood, separation is inevitable, because it is important to realize that there are only points of contact, but no permanent all-in-one being with the partner. That there are no universal values and lasting consensus or harmony, but only an honest and open exchange.
With children and other shared obligations, it is important to practice mindfulness and develop respect for the partner’s otherness during this phase.

It is important to learn that there is always more than one way and not the one right path. Nevertheless, it is crucial to complete a separation before the next step – a separation without any hope, because only in a real fire can all illusions and projections, all childhood longings and relationship disappointments burn.

A straw fire may produce high flames, but its cleansing power only lasts until the next repetition loop – with the same or a new partner.

This includes recognizing that one’s own biography is life-determining and that a partnership can only be a complement to everyday challenges.

It means accepting that every relationship is a gift – without the right to get or own anything. There are no guarantees and no certainties in love.

Everyone is responsible for the balance of their own life – no ifs, ands, or buts. Love, compassion and kindness are gifts, not entitlements. Becoming an adult means leaving behind the demanding victim mentality, putting aside defense mechanisms and clearly naming fears.

In the end, there is the realization: No one but me is responsible for my life and my feelings.

It is a great challenge and often a balancing act to take care of yourself first and foremost without losing sight of others.

This inner journey is like the hero’s journey, the so-called monomyth. It follows its own stages until the hero returns to the familiar world. Outwardly, it may seem unchanged, but the view of it is completely new. The experiences and skills that have emerged along the way have changed everything.

And so he or she will return – but never be quite a part of the old world again.

Once we have embarked on the hero’s journey and mastered its turbulence, we have – at least in part – arrived at ourselves and are well on our way to becoming adults.

We are purified, and as with small children, a large part of our omnipotence has disappeared in this phase. We have felt humility and can now begin to practice compassion. We have also learned to take ourselves more seriously than others without becoming reckless or selfish. We realize that many of our ideas and notions have less to do with ourselves than we originally thought.

We have grown and matured and have acquired one or two scars along the way. But more importantly, we can show these scars – without shame, without blaming and without the hope that the partner will cosmetically fix them.

The eternal smile will have disappeared from many faces, and what is commonly called charisma begins to develop. It is a connection with oneself, with one’s wounds and pain, with one’s joy and one’s desire, which one sees in people in this phase.

The poet Khalil Gibran said about it: “Facial features that reveal the secrets of our soul give a face beauty and grace, even if these soul secrets are painful and sorrowful. Faces, on the other hand, which – like masks – conceal what is going on inside them, lack all beauty, even if their external forms are perfectly symmetrical and harmonious. ”⁴

The second spring is like a rekindling of a love that has already been written off. However, this rekindling has nothing in common with falling in love at the beginning of the journey.

The autistic phase is characterized by the search for a partner who fulfills as many needs as possible, for whose self-sufficiency we do not want to take responsibility.

In the second spring, on the other hand, we look at the partner with respect: we see him as the one who carried and endured our weaning and fledging. We look at a person who stayed with us, even though there was much to be said against it – we look at a person who truly deserves our respect and our gifts.

Does that mean necessarily staying in a partnership with the current partner and moving on?

Not necessarily, because on our way to ourselves we may have met other people.
But we will look back on the partner who accompanied and supported us on this path – regardless of all previous disputes – with respect and goodwill.

Love is a child of freedom – we do not know where it leads.

Our model arose from observations and experiences in classical couples counseling.
But the path we describe leads far beyond that.

For many couples, it is already a great challenge to reach the stage of the Second Spring. A separation – with all the associated fears and uncertainties – is a deterrent. It often seems more convenient to remain in a temporary relaxation, to preserve small taboo zones and not to question everything radically.

For ordinary life, a Second Spring is already a big step. The partners have dared to take courageous development steps and have often taken considerable risks.

But the journey continues. It never ends.

The pearl – the BEING, the awakening – lies beyond all couples counseling and joint development.

At this point, love, abundance and harmony are no longer terms that could describe the state of a relationship – of whatever kind. They defy all social codes.
They are all-encompassing – and ultimately wordless.

The fact that we were allowed to discover the unspeakable behind the horizon is a grace. And what remains in the end is a deeply felt: Thank you.

Our model is based on Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic object relations theory and was confirmed in the 1970s by Margaret Mahler’s empirical research. Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson first applied her findings on early childhood development directly to partnerships in 1988 – in their book In Quest of the Mythical Mate. In the same year, A. H. Almaas (The Pearl Beyond Price) published a spiritual development of this approach.

We have taken up the basics of these models, developed them further and combined them with our own observations from couples counseling.

In our sessions, we work integratively: with a systemic view (Virginia Satir), elements from transactional analysis (Eric Berne), Gestalt therapy (Fritz Perls), work with the inner child (John Bradshaw), de-hypnosis (Stephen Wolinsky) and trauma therapeutic approaches.

In addition, there are experiences from many other therapeutic and spiritual directions that we have been able to gather on our journey; and our very personal path.